Heading off malaria

A revolutionary malaria treatment is to begin trials in Mozambique in healthy people. Along with their standard WHO vaccinations, 2000 newborn infants—and 600 pregnant women—will be given the anti-malarial drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine. In a smaller trial in Tanzania, the preventative treatment reduced the rate of clinical malaria by almost 60 per cent, and halved the rate of severe anaemia caused by malaria. Researchers from the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona now hope to confirm these findings.